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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23397553">Catching A Cold</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Head_Of_Ianus/pseuds/Head_Of_Ianus'>Head_Of_Ianus</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>James Bond (Craig movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(like very light angst no worries), And Q is sick of his shit, Common Cold, Crushes, Fluff, James Bond Is A Menace, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, No Plot/Plotless, Sickfic, Snarky Q, Sort Of</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:07:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,531</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23397553</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Head_Of_Ianus/pseuds/Head_Of_Ianus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which James Bond has a habit of catching colds and disappearing off the face of the earth without as much as a word. Q is quite sick of Bond not realizing that his friends do worry about him and makes sure that he knows from now on. Bond is mostly busy crushing on him, though.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James Bond/Q</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>112</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Catching A Cold</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Ha, finally finished something I started writing. It happens a bit too rarely.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>James Bond had a habit of catching colds.</p><p>Not actually during his missions or whenever he was working, though. Just that as soon as he settled down for any of his impromptu vacations, he was bound to feel an ache in his throat crawling up and breaking his voice down to rough drawl – and it was a downward spiral for the first week after that.<br/>
Bond had figured out a while ago that it was probably due to the fact that his body‘s immune system was constantly boosted by adrenaline and near permanent stress during work. However, once he had flushed all those hormones out of him after a day or two of not having missions or just generally nothing much to worry about, his body caught up with the idea of not being in an immediate dead or alive situation. In most cases that meant it didn‘t have the adrenaline kick any more to just shove petty little things such as colds away and keep him running.</p><p>That also meant, in a more practical sense, that he usually spent the first week of any and all breaks he allowed himself holed up in his hotel room, doing a worrying amount of – nothing, really. All his energy was usually drained by his body fighting against the cold like it was a bloody death threat. Fortunately, the urge to do some sort of exercise was usually killed off by the nauseating wave of headaches that ensued once he had his head anywhere close to lower than on level with his spine. He also never went out and picked anybody up along the way. Firstly, he wasn‘t all too charming when he was sniffling constantly, and secondly, he barely had the energy to get up anyway. His few “cold weeks“ were also rare occasion in which Bond forced himself to drink as little as possible, considering that he was well aware that it extended his recovery time. In conclusion: There was basically nothing to do for James Bond but to lay in bed, sleep, eat and hope to get well soon.</p><p>And he currently committed to doing just that. He had decided to go off radar after an actually rather pleasant mission – there hadn‘t been much to cock up from the start on and retrieving the information had gone rather smoothly. Hell, he even got out of it without anyone – allies, potential enemies, civilians - dying (there were some real estate damages, but really, what did headquarter expect of him?), but he‘d noticed himself almost slipping up and making avoidable mistakes once or twice. If the last years had taught him anything, it was to be wary of getting too inattentive. It invited leaps in judgement like open doors invited thieves.</p><p>So instead of going home to London for his debrief, Bond had booked a flight back home with his mission assigned alias as was planned, and then another one to Southern France with another identity and bank account. After assuring his employer (and Q, more importantly) that he was very much still alive when they noticed that the agent that was supposed to be back in London wasn‘t even on the flight there he‘d booked himself, he got rid of the pieces of equipment that could track him and got on his actual flight – and considering the ways he had vanished from the stage a few times before, it was actually quite polite to announce he was taking a vacation. Heavens, if M got Q to actually whole-heartedly search and contact him, he wouldn‘t be hard to find at all.</p><p>Bond had to suppress a small smirk as he reached for his mandatory cup of tea (some bland of herbs that was supposed to help with colds) from the night stand next to his bed. Double-Oh Status be blessed! He wouldn‘t be able to pull half of his shit without it. He sank down a bit further into his covers. France had been pleasant so far, but then again he hadn‘t got to see much of it yet, except the blue sky and the scent of some flowers blooming that was streaming in through his opened window. The film that was playing in the background had some detective investigating the murder of a family patriarch – He didn‘t really bother to keep up with it, content with it as background noise whilst he drifted in and out of thoughts and sleep - Bond could have sworn he‘d heard someone walking along the hallway just now-</p><p>Oh.<br/>
Oh, the steps had stopped.<br/>
And if he wasn‘t wrong, it had been in front of his door.</p><p>A knock.</p><p>Oh well, that was not a good thing.<br/>
He didn‘t remember ordering room service.<br/>
Bond sat up – the muscles in his neck tightened – his finger felt around for his gun -<br/>
First way to solve this situation:<br/>
Wait.</p><p>A second knock.<br/>
More insistent -</p><p>They weren‘t willing to give up, then.<br/>
He gripped his gun, fingers flexing – he got up – eyes fixed on the door -<br/>
The soft carpet swallowed the sound of his steps -</p><p>Click -</p><p>Okay, so they were picking his lock.<br/>
Definitely not good, then.<br/>
He took cover in the entrance of his bathroom.<br/>
Another click.<br/>
Bond peered out – oh jesus, his blood circulation was catching up with him -<br/>
Black spots in his sight – he tried not to lose balance -</p><p>The door cracked open.</p><p>„Bond, I really am not in the mood for this shit.“</p><p>Bond almost jumped at that voice. The absolute last person he had expected to enter his room -</p><p>„Q?“</p><p>Even as he stuck his head out of the bedroom, he couldn‘t keep the confusion out of his voice entirely -</p><p>„You know how to pick a lock?“</p><p>Closing the door behind him, Q just shrugged. His cream cashmere jumper made him look as handsome and competent as any person could naturally look – Jesus, Bond was at it again. That was another thing he just had learned to accept to be one of the rare constants in his life: He would consistently have crushes on people.</p><p>He didn‘t like having to call it a crush, because honestly, it felt very off-brand for him, but infatuation or falling in love were words too strong for his sudden bounds of affection. It was just quite regular for him to look at a person and find traits and behaviours in them that he considered attractive or admirable, and he‘d then feel a rather short-lived attraction towards them. Usually, these fond feelings died and rotted away as soon as he had to deal with the person more directly, once their problems and negative attributes had a chance to show. Anyway, he wasn't usually too bothered by his “crushes“: They weren‘t strong enough for him to feel more than a temporary sense of self-hatred if he had to kill the subject in question and were helpful if he had to sleep with them. Hell, there were quite a few colleagues at MI6 he had felt this sort of attraction to, but he had never felt any need to act on the feelings and – as was to be expected – they faded after a while when he noticed his friends and co-workers were not like he had previously thought them out to be, or they gave him a good piece of mind that he didn‘t agree with.</p><p>Well, and then there was Q. Infuriating, beautiful, sarcastic Q. Bond had literally felt his affections for the younger man grow every time they met. At first, he wasn‘t too worried, Q was clever and clearly competent, he didn‘t back down and rarely seemed to be even the slightest bit intimidated by him. He was hitting a lot of potential points that made a person attractive to him. Bond had just assumed that somewhere along their usual banter Q would eventually drop a piece of information or an opinion that Bond could not reconcile with his idealized version of Q, and heavens, he had – there were quite a few things about Q that were usually unfavourable to him.<br/>
Bond could still spot the bags under Q‘s eyes from metres away, and he wished the man would take his health a bit more serious, for example. There was also his – possibly pretentious – love for art and its meaning that had led him to make Bond make him philosophically stare at a picture of a bloody big ship for half an hour as their first introduction to each other, and Bond was frankly as sure as he‘d ever be about anything that he would never share that love. The problem here was that all these things should have been enough to end any sort of attraction that he felt towards Q, and should have only left behind either a sense of general mild affection or a very certain sense of disdain for him, but they bafflingly hadn‘t.<br/>
Maybe he actually had an infatuation on his hands this time.</p><p>Q abandoned his worn messenger bag at the door:</p><p>“There are some skills you just pick up along the way. You should wear sweatpants more often, they add an air of modernism to you.“</p><p>Bond stumbled out of the bathroom and wondered shortly if he was having a fever dream, because what the bloody hell was Q doing here? Honestly, it was throwing him off balance quite a bit, and he struggled to resume his normal banter between them as he made his way back to his bed to sit down -</p><p>“Oh, don‘t be shy, just break into my room and act as though it‘s just a normal day at the office for you – Can I offer you a drink?“</p><p>“Yes, actually, that would be nice -“</p><p>Frankly, just that bluntness and complete shamelessness should have put him off. Would have put him off, usually. With Q, he for some reason didn‘t even mind too much. Dragging a chair from across the room to sit in front of Bond, Q seemed to preparing himself for the mother of all diatribes. James‘ head hurt just seeing him do that. It was nothing against the sinking feeling of dread when he finally caught up to the usual air of annoyed amusement missing from his Quartermaster. He wasn‘t entirely sure that was just due to exhaustion. His stomach was in knots.<br/>
Something was wrong, and he probably had brought it on.<br/>
Disregarding his gun on the night stand, he once again made to get up to get the other man his drink – he had manners after all – but he couldn‘t help but grimace as he straightened up, vertigo hitting him with full force, almost making him stumble -</p><p>But fortunately, Q gripped him by the shoulders and forced him back down -<br/>
He looked quite concerned now, actually. It made his eyes glint very prettily.<br/>
The cold knots in his stomach uncurled and instead a warm feeling of content stretched out lazily in his chest, like a cat in the afternoon sun. Jesus fucking Christ, it was a full on infatuation.</p><p>“Are you okay, Bond? Have you been injured?“,</p><p>Q squinted at him quizzically, as though he could figure out what was wrong with his agent just by staring at him hard enough. If he weren‘t currently focused on trying to regain orientation, Bond would have thought it was adorable. Eventually, he declined, mumbling:</p><p>“Got a headache. Caught a cold.“</p><p>For a few seconds, the young man across from him looked dumbfounded.</p><p>“You have a cold. Like, a common cold. Stuffy noses and sneezes.“</p><p>“Yes, that is what I said, Q. Why are you even here?“</p><p>Q blinked, apparently still registering, and then eventually got up from his spot to get himself the drink he‘d been promised. Well, was it that serious? Maybe Bond shouldn‘t have taken his vacation, or maybe he should have at least informed M that he was going to be gone for a while, and where to find him -</p><p>“Oh, I was actually at a technology fair, of sorts. It‘s quite pointless sending me there, I could stream the whole event from home – God, half the new products that are being presented I knew of since they have first been thought of, basically. But most services send their heads of departments there, it‘s really just showing off that you have someone competent for the job.“</p><p>Q returned to his place and took a careful sip to test the taste of his drink. Bond shifted to lean his back against the headboard of his bed. He decidedly did not look at Q‘s Adam‘s apple as he swallowed. God, this whole situation was really throwing him off.</p><p>“I remember you telling me that you despise flying, or did the cold hit me harder than expected?“</p><p>“Ah, it‘s nothing a few drugs couldn‘t solve if taken in appropriate amounts. I knew what I signed up for when I got this job. I just don‘t want to fly more than strictly necessary.“</p><p>Q waved it off, but Bond frowned:</p><p>“Isn‘t that a bit dangerous, putting you on a plane while drugged? You are quite an important part of MI6 – you could have gotten kidnapped, jesus -“</p><p>Without noticing, Bond had sat up, leaning forward slightly, and Q pushed him back again and handed his cup of tea from earlier -</p><p>“Bloody hell, Bond, sit down and listen for once in a while“,</p><p>Q looked as though he was fighting a smile sneaking out from his lips, but he shook his head sternly,</p><p>“Firstly, don‘t worry, M sent someone to come along with me, and they would have come with me anyway, even if I hadn‘t been out of my mind completely. Also, I had to pay you visit and check in with you, didn‘t I?“</p><p>Bond almost chocked on his tea: “Did you tell M where -“</p><p>“You are? No, I actually didn‘t. But the fair was only a two-hour drive away, and I thought that if I was already this nearby, I might also visit you to inform you that you could submit days off like every other normal employee instead of just vanishing of the face of the earth without as much as a word.“</p><p>“Maximum vacation for healthy field agents is two weeks in a row though, and since I always spent the first one in bed that really isn‘t enough time.“</p><p>“You could have at least told me where you were going and for how long, though.“</p><p>Q wasn‘t smiling now, and the way his mouth had set into a tight line instead made him appear even more tired than the bags underneath his eyes. And Bond, James fucking Bond, honestly didn‘t know how to deal this open display of pure worry and disappointment that Q was giving him, so he forced his mouth into a smirk that even he knew didn‘t reach his eyes:</p><p>“So worried about me, Quartermaster?“</p><p>“Yes, actually.“</p><p>Q didn‘t waver, he still looked Bond in the eyes, not a glint in his own to indicate that he was joking, and slowly, Bond‘s smile fell away as well. The credits of the film he‘d put on were slowly fading out and even the birds chirped somewhat muted now. He twisted his hands in the sheets underneath his hands, and broke eye contact. He wanted to apologize and knew that he wouldn‘t even before he opened his mouth:</p><p>“How exactly did you find me that quickly anyway?“</p><p>“You do remember Smart Blood, don‘t you, Bond?“</p><p>“Oh.“</p><p>“You know, I felt bad for effectively chipping you like a cat, I really did at first, but maybe it‘s for the best that way.“</p><p>Oh. That stung quite a bit. Bond tried to wash away the new bitterness with a sip of tea, but he couldn‘t shake off the thought that maybe he deserved the resentment he heard in Q‘s voice. Because he technically knew he was causing the others, his colleagues, his friends, a great deal of pain and worry by constantly leaving without saying a word but -</p><p>“Don‘t bother, Bond, I know you didn‘t mean to worry us, you just don‘t think a whole deal about consequences and the fact that people do care about you.“</p><p>Q had finished his drink and set the glass down next to his gun without any noise or clattering. Stretching, he got up. Bond couldn‘t help to adore it, despite all, or maybe because of it all. He also felt a headache coming on from all of this.</p><p>“I‘m actually sorry, though, Q“, he admitted meekly.</p><p>“Hmm-“</p><p>Q bowed down a bit and Bond was confused –<br/>
He didn‘t expect the man to tuck at the covers atop of him.<br/>
Oh.<br/>
Well, he wasn‘t opposed to that at all.<br/>
He should be, they were co-workers after all, this was going to complicate things a lot, but in his current state of mind – there were definitely something in his brain that was misfiring gravely – that sounded like a problem to think about another time, right now Q‘s hand almost stroking along his thigh was so much more interesting -<br/>
It was confusing, though, this sudden change of mood and mind -</p><p>“What exactly are you trying to do?“, Bond raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“You need to sleep, Bond, get your mind out off the gutter“,</p><p>Oh. If he were the type to blush, he would have had the decency to blush now.</p><p>Q, even as he tried to keep the appearance of being severely annoyed up, had an amused glint in his eyes. Thank god, he could – would have kissed the man for finally warming the atmosphere up a bit, even if Bond might have deserved the coldness. And was currently severely embarrassed.</p><p>He cooperated happily, shuffling down so that Q could pull the cover properly atop of him and lied down quite well-behaved. It wasn‘t as though he couldn‘t do it by himself – of course he could, Jesus Christ - but he had to admit to himself that he enjoyed Q carefully taking his cup out of his hands and pushing him to take a nap and care of himself, even if he had been so strained by his behaviour just seconds ago. The concept of Q caring for him he realized, he enjoyed the concept of Q caring for – even better – about him. He was a lost cause at this point.</p><p>“Take a nap, Bond.“</p><p>“Is that an order?“</p><p>“Considering how well you follow orders, I‘d rather you consider it a request by a friend.“</p><p>Saying that, Q made his way to the door, and Bond let himself drown away into the softness of the bed -</p><p>-</p><p>The next time Bond woke up, there was a distinct smell of soup taking in the room, and he groaned as his stomach immediately demanded him to take the opportunity to eat. Q sat cross-legged on the other side of the bed, his hair an absolute mess of black coils, and he all but snickered as he watched Bond waking up.</p><p>“Are you hungry, James?“</p><p>He himself had a plate of soup balanced on his lap, and as Bond got up, he poured him one as well, handing it to him with a spoon. And after that, Q really couldn‘t be bothered to hold a conversation, happily eating.</p><p>He was glanced over to Q once in a while, and even if Q seemed to be less angry now, he could still spot the bags and the subtle tension in his shoulders he got whenever he‘d been stressed. Stressed, worried, most likely because of him. It had been a shitty move, just disappearing, after all the times he had made off without as much as a goodbye, and he could see why the others might worry he was just going to keep on disappearing until at one point he never came back. It was unfair of him, as much as he treasured his independence. Carefully, he sat down his plate of soup and reached for his night stand.<br/>
Q glanced up, one eyebrow shooting up.</p><p>“What are you doing, James?“</p><p>“I thought I might as well inform M about this little vacation of mine and ask him for a few more days off.“</p><p>“That‘s still not at all the proper way to submit days off -“</p><p>Bond flinched a bit, almost undetectable, because – he was really trying here, he was actually taking his pride out of the equation and Q -</p><p>“But I will gladly accept it and the implied apology that comes along with it, James.<br/>
Just this once though, this won‘t work the next time around if you pull this shit again.“</p><p>The pleased smile that appeared on Q‘s lips and stayed for the entire rest of the evening was worth the diatribe M threw at him, at least if anyone were to ask James. He had never seen as smile as genuine as that on his – on Q. Smiling like the sun tried to fit in him. Bloody hell, he was pinning idiot, all rumours were true. And if the somewhat over-enthusiastic kiss Q had pressed to his cheek (and then apologized for until he‘d been told it was actually very much welcomed) had made his heart jump a bit, then really, that was nobody‘s goddamn business.</p>
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